Sunday, December 11, 2011

In this African witchcraft universe, every existential challenge – death, hunger, accidents, disease, conflict and poverty, among others, are attributed to witchcraft. There is no human agency responsible for glitches. Witchcraft is responsible for all problems. Witchcraft beliefs are so dominant that they decide the African’s fortune, asphyxiate him and renders him helpless. How bizarre and troubling! ...

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the African is nurtured into such inexplicable witchcraft beliefs by certain parts of the African culture. It feeds into the African’s strong believes in evil spirits, demons, witches, juju and other malevolent forces as responsible for life’s difficulties. The African isn’t accountable for his or her actions.

Such predicaments reveal the battle between rationality/human agency and irrationality in the soul of the African. The African appears helpless under this bizarre battle. There are two possibilities: 1. The believer in witchcraft does not question why witchcraft is responsible for life’s tribulations. 2. The witchcraft believer acts under not only the cultural circumstances but also his or her human agency. In such frame of mind, the witchcraft believer is guilty of atrocities committed against victims of witchcraft accusation and not witches influencing circumstances.

OF course, western societies who killed millions shouldn't point fingers.

The "victims" of communism (Kulaks, Ukrainians, "hoarders", "Old thought people") or those exploited and left to starve (e.g. Ireland) because Malthus said they were overbreeding and inefficient, or those "inferior gene pool" (the Jews, the Gypsies, the Slavs, the retarded) types killed by the Nazis were also victims of a secular type of witchcraft....